“Whataboutism”: What Exactly is This?

Written by John (the other John).

If you noticed, agitators seem to cherry-pick facts on various political/social issues without the full context in the effort to deceive you, and when you reply to them by providing either context or precedent, their response has been “oh, that is just ‘whataboutism’”. Now you may be asking, what exactly is “whataboutism”. Basically, that word is not only the latest fad by the cool- kids in the effort to catch us “off balance” by causing confusion, but more importantly, it is intended to diminish both us AND the fuller context of our argument. So let me give some examples of tunnel-vision facts, with the natural full context reply highlighted in red:

• White people enslaved blacks, thus white people are racist. Response: Slavery has existed in the entire 100,000 years of human history, so this is not a concept created by whites. And as for blacks, Muslims enslaved an estimated 60 million blacks for 1,400 years, in which there are to this very day slave markets in Libya, yet the Leftists never seem to demonstrate rage over that.
• A white cop shot a black man, which proves all white people are racist. Response: About 1 million blacks in Sudan were killed in a genocide by Arabs in this century alone; about 900,000 blacks were killed in a genocide in Rwanda about 25 years ago; and many more blacks are victims of black-on-black crime, yet never any rage by Leftists. Why?
• Anyone opposing gay marriage is a bigoted homophobe. Response: The Democrats under Clinton also opposed it.
• Trump hates black people for saying that blacks are killing each other in Chicago. Response: What do the FBI crime stats show for the homicides in Chicago?
• Trump is a misogynist for mistreating women. Response: Billy-boy was accused of rape and other harassing acts against women, while Hillary and other women’s activists overlooked his exploits and also attacked the victims.
• White people have exploited Hispanics. Response; The Spanish had trafficked 10 times as many Africans during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, why are they never the target of your venom?
• Trump wants to cheat in the elections. Response: Democrats are trafficking in future voters for themselves.
• Voter ID laws are racist against blacks. Response: If photo ID laws are meant to harm blacks, then how is it that nightclubs are filled with blacks who show photo ID to enter?
• White people are the most privileged people in history. Response: Muslims enslaved 1-2 million coastal Europeans in the Barbary Slave Trade; and another 2-3 million mainland European Slavs. In fact, the word “slave” is derived by the Slavic people (white people).
• The greed of white nations after WWI carved out random border lines in the Middles East and Northern Africa that led to turmoil and war during the last 100 years Response: As opposed to the preceding 1,000 years of Ottoman rule in which the Sultan in Istanbul was in charge of government/political/economic/social matters in lieu of local leaders, in which any opposition led to a death sentence?
• Etc...

You see where this is going; I could continue ad nauseum, but that would be counterproductive. Basically, for every handpicked fact/opinion the Leftists make, the rebuttal provides context and precedent to debunk the accusation. But because the Leftists lack a proper counter reply, they instead minimize both you AND your statement by smearing it as “whataboutism”; they do not want context because that sheds light on the truth, and they instead just want you to reply to the limited fact (which of course is a misleading fact) that is intended to draw a false conclusion. They do not want the truth!

So yes, “whataboutism” is context and precedent to their bogus accusation for which Leftists have no valid reply. And also, your reply to their “whataboutism” is not only a refutal to their argument, but it is more-so an indictment against them personally; after all, if they want to play the role of Judge, juror, and executioner, then their own malicious motives are a relevant issue that is ripe for debate (unlike an independent impartial observer).

So when you hear this “whataboutism” again from these people, you can just tell them “check mate”.